Maoist China

China, of course, also underwent a Socialist Revolution.
Mao unified the once divided China under a central government. Like most
other Socialist Revolutions, the Maoist revolution was successful primarily
because there was such a widespread desire to expel the foreign imperialists
that were controlling China. By the time of the revolution the Chinese people
had already endured hundreds of years of foreign intervention and significant
foreign control over the Chinese economy. The Opium War, Second Anglo-Chinese
War, and Boxer rebellion of 1900 had already taken place. In retaliation to
the Boxer Rebellion a huge international force of Western powers along with
Japan invaded China, killing untold numbers of Chinese, likely over a
million, and looting the country of precious treasures.

Looting was rampant and widespread during the China
Relief Expedition of 1900, especially, it is reported, among the American
Marines, who at the time were among the least disciplined members of the
international expedition. There were also many cases of rape, of both
boys and girls, the destruction of whole villages, and the shooting of
civilians and even pets as they fled the invading international forces.

A US Army general commented that:

"The villages had
been burned and looted by the allied columns, the people had fled from their
homes... the sedgy banks of the Peiho were reeking with the stench from the
floating bodies of dead Chinamen."

General Adna Chaffee reported that:

"It is safe to
say that where one real Boxer has been killed since the capture of Peking,
fifty harmless coolies or laborers on farms, including not a few women and
children, have been slain."

Exact figures on casualties are not known, but tens of
thousand of Boxers were killed in the expedition, so if what this general
says is true then that would put the civilian casualties in the
millions, which would not be surprising for that type of warfare at that
time, especially when disease is factored in.

American forces sustained a loss of only 9 men through
the entire campaign. The Boxers fought largely with no weapons at all
and most of the killing was of civilians and unarmed fighters. There
are several cases of thousands of men being killed by groups of a few hundred
heavily armed men who suffered no losses.

Smedley Butler, just a young man at the time, wrote:

"Peking is a dirty slop hole as far as I can see. The Imperial City
is a little better than the rest, and before the trouble, I imagine it was
very handsome, but now, or at least up until last week or so, dead Chinamen
adorn the highways with their swollen persons."

"In 1800, the per-capita standard of living in China
exceeded that of Europe. Like India, China did not need or want
Britain's products. However, Britain consumed large quantities of Chinese tea
and, to avoid the loss of Britain's gold, it was imperative that something
else be traded. Though it was done covertly and not acknowledged by the
British government, it became official policy for British merchants to peddle
opium to China. Opium [sold to China] was no hole-in-the-corner petty
smuggling trade but probably the largest commerce of the time in any single
commodity . This injustice was challenged by Chinese authorities
(the Boxer Rebellion) but their attempt to maintain sovereignty was put down
by a combined force of 20,000 British, French, Japanese, German, and United
States troops (5,000 were Americans) led by a German general. It was a
blatant attempt to carve up China between those imperial-centers-of-capital
.

With the sales of opium exceeding the purchases of tea, Britain
lost neither gold nor currency. Their capital and labor costs involved only
an internal circulation of money. No wealth was lost to another society,
which is the essence of a successful mercantilist policy. This appears
productive only because the wealth gained or protected by Britain was
considered; the much greater losses suffered by China, India, and much of the
world were conveniently left uncalculated.

While the imperial-centers-of-capital were battling each other
in WWII, China was laying its base for economic freedom. Although it is
little known to Americans, after the war United States troops were guarding
key rail lines and ports for the collapsing Chinese government and the OSS,
precursor to the CIA, was busy ferrying Chiang Kai-shek's troops back and
forth across China to suppress that revolution. However, China did break free
in 1949, was marginalized for years by the imperial nations, yet still built
a modest industrial capacity, and—by moving under the same
protectionist umbrella as Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea—eventually
averaged production gains of well over 10% a year."

The McKinley administration had proclaimed in 1898 that,
"we must have Hawaii to help us get our share of China." Hawaii
was obtained specifically for its significance in being able to help conquer
Chinese territory. It was no secret that the world intended to
conquer China and take its territory from the people. Virtually all the
Western powers in addition to Japan and Czarist Russia had been engaged in
this action. The world continued attempts to carve up China throughout the
early part of the 20th century.

China entered a state of civil war in the 1920s in order
to unite the fragmented nation. This effort was initially led by the
Kuomintang. During the early stages of the efforts to untie the country
the Kuomintang and Chinese Communists worked in loose cooperation, but in
1927 the Kuomintang, led by Chiang Kai-Shek, began systematically purging the
growing Communists and so the People's Liberation Army, a.k.a. Red Army, was
formed.

The civil war continued with the Kuomintang fighting the
Soviet Chinese Republican army led by Mao. The Kuomintang were
receiving support from the Nazis and by 1933 were receiving the assistance of
Nazi German advisors. The Kuomintang were extremely corrupt and were fighting
to secure a hierarchical dominance over the massive peasant population.
Because of this Mao was able to generate great support for his movement among
the peasants, who were quick to join his forces.

In 1937 the Japanese invaded China marking the start of
the Second Sino-Japanese War. At this time the Kuomintang and
Communists allied against the Japanese invaders. During this time, from
1937 until 1945 when World War II had ended, the Kuomintang and Communist
armies still clashed with each other and were making preparations for the
civil war that they knew would take place after the Japanese had been
expelled.

Between 1917 and 1937 the following table gives some
"best guess" estimates of the numbers of democides, political murders,
committed by the various groups during the Chinese civil wars.

Committed by

number killed

Kuomintang

1,567,000

Maoists

893,000

Warlords

800,000

Famine

12,500,000

Throughout World War II, even though the Kuomintang were
fighting against the Japanese invaders, they were still receiving aid from
Nazi Germany, and in fact they also got aid from the USSR and America as
well. They were playing all sides of the coin, getting aid from the
Nazis to fight against the Communists, and getting aid from the USSR to fight
against Japan. America was aiding them to fight both the Japanese and the
Communists. There were repeated attempts by Americans, such as James Forrestal of Standard Oil and Allen Dulles, to get Chiang Kai-Shek to stop
all fighting against the Japanese and instead focus all of their efforts
against Mao's forces. The Kuomintang did do this to an extent, hoping
that the Communists would be weakened by the attacks on the Japanese, however
the opposite was actually the case. The top Kuomintang General, Tai Li,
acknowledged during the war that Heinrich Himmler was his role model.

During the Second World War the Communist forces of Mao
proved to be a superior fighting force and did most of the defending against
the Japanese invaders, which not only brought them more support from the
Chinese population, but more experience, loot, and territory as well.

The situation in China during WWII was very
complex. It was a many sided war that was taking place in the middle of
a civil war and international foreign invasion from all sides. Nazi,
Russian, Japanese, and American forces were all fighting to try and take
control of parts of China during WWII and were all using Chiang Kai-Shek and
other warlords as their way to try and obtain that control. China sustained
the second highest number of casualties during World War II after the Soviet
Union. Over 11 million people were killed in China during the war.

After peace was signed with Japan, the United States
immediately began a joint invasion of China with the Japanese to assist
Chiang Kai-Shek in the fight against the Chinese Red Army. In the
period between 1945 and 1949 the US sent over 2 billion dollars to the forces
of Chiang Kai-Shek, helped to train Kuomintang soldiers, and sent 100,000
American troops to China to help fight against the Red Army. This, of
course, is all very little known among Americans.

Despite this, hundreds of thousands of soldiers of the
Kuomintang forces defected to the Communists because of the rampant and
blatant corruption of the Kuomintang, which was partly fueled by the American
money which flowed freely to them after the war.

Chiang Kai-Shek and his forces eventually lost control
in mainland China and retreated to Taiwan where they proceeded to kill 28,000
civilians in their takeover the island.

The government of Chiang Kai-Shek, based in Taiwan, was
recognized by the United States, and most of the rest of the world, as the
only legitimate government of the nation of China until after the death of
Chiang Kai-Shek.

Mao's Revolution was a peasant revolution, and this
caused a great deal of conflict with Stalin and other Communists because
Communist Revolutionary ideology is based on the concept of a workers
revolution, not a peasant revolution. However, Mao had built his base
of support among the farmers so as his forces "liberated" cities from
Kuomintang or other rule, they often viewed workers as enemies, even if they
were Communists. This caused the strange situation of Communist workers
welcoming Mao's forces as liberators, only to have them turn against them.
Mao's Revolution was in some ways a case of farmers simply taking control of
the country and opposing all who stood in their way. Because of this many of
the people who were executed or imprisoned during the early Maoist takeover
were Marxists and Communists.

Though many Chinese opposed Maoist rule, when America
invaded Korea the Chinese population united behind Mao out of increased fear
of American imperialism. This is perhaps the greatest irony of the Communist
movement in China. One of the most significant factors that led to the success of the
Communist takeover of China was the American invasion of China and Korea to
“fight Communism”.

Once Communist Party control of China had been
established Maoist China developed through a series of programs:

The economy that developed in China during the Maoist
period is best described as "state-capitalism". China was run, and continues
to be run, as one giant corproation.

In 1953 Chairman Mao wrote:

"The present-day capitalist economy in China is a
capitalist economy which for the most part is under the control of the
People's Government and which is linked with the state-owned socialist
economy in various forms and supervised by the workers. It is not an ordinary
but a particular kind of capitalist economy, namely, a state-capitalist
economy of a new type. It exists not chiefly to make profits for the
capitalists but to meet the needs of the people and the state. True, a share
of the profits produced by the workers goes to the capitalists, but that is
only a small part, about one quarter, of the total. The remaining three
quarters are produced for the workers (in the form of the welfare fund), for
the state (in the form of income tax) and for expanding productive capacity
(a small part of which produces profits for the capitalists). Therefore, this
state-capitalist economy of a new type takes on a socialist character to a
very great extent and benefits the workers and the state."

This page is a part of
This War Is About So Much More which was written
in March and April of 2003. This document should be read in the order
that it is presented. If you are coming to this page from an outside
source, such as a search engine, and you are interested in how this
information relates to Operation Iraqi Freedom, then please start at the
Foreword. In addition, if you have been
directed here from an outside search engine then you may want to
re-search this website with the same criteria because it is likely that
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